Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel: Samuel Johnson The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page -> Patriotism -> Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel on the evening of April 7, 1775. He doesn't provide any context for how the remark arose, so we don't really know for sure what was on Johnson's mind at the time. However, Boswell assures us that Johnson was not indicting patriotism in general, only false patriotism. For more of Samuel Johnson's thoughts on patriotism in general, go to the patriotism page. For a discussion on a possible false patriot who Johnson might have been thinking of, see this discussion. What does this quote by Samuel Johnson mean: 'Patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel'? Why will it be the last? - Quora Quora What does this quote by Samuel Johnson mean: "Patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel"? Why will it be the last? Also, do you agree with his quote?

Written Feb 14, 2015 I absolutely agree with Mr. Jackson. What he's calling attention to is that scoundrels, when challenged, will often use false patriotism in order to shut up their opponents. It's a form of Ad. Hom. Attack which is precisely demonstrated by Shrubs' national speech on his grand Orwellian lie the USA "Partiot" Act (which should, by all Rights have been named the anti Constitutional Traitors' Act) The principle is also amply demonstrated in the name which was so carefully and conveniently created for that grand lie. So Shrub goes on national T.V. and claims falsely that this here "Patriot " Act is absolutely necessary to stop terrorists, that anyone who opposes it is a traitor who's rooting for them terrorists, and that those traitors should be denied work and housing by every real patriot... Poof! *Magic* An absolute, unmitigated, lying, treasonous scoundrel hiding very effectively behind false patriotism while shifting the approbation to his detractors... the True Patriots to our Constitution.

Another way to say it is a quote from Gore Vidal (?) "When tyranny comes to the United States, she will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a bible." This is precisely what Bush and Cheney did, with the full aid and collusion of Congress. They used false assertions of "patriotism" to disguise their treason against Our Constitution. What really sickens me is that even today there are folks who hear the word Patriot and promptly cease all coherent thought. The Partial Observer - Not Just the Last Refuge of the Scoundrel Not Just the Last Refuge of the Scoundrel What Patriotism Is. August 1, 2001 Not Just the Last Refuge of the Scoundrel_James Leroy Wilson-What Patriotism Is. Perhaps Samuel Johnson's most famous quotation is "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." The point, as I always understood it, is that appealing to loyalty to one's own country is the act of a demagogue, of one who will say and do anything to gain public approval and political power. Primarily, it casts those who disagree as unpatriotic, hostile to the institutions and interests of their own country. Honest disagreement becomes character assassination.

Underneath the appeal is the exploitation of bigoted or prejudiced feelings of the masses. The quote is famous, but I don't know the context in which it was said. I do know that there is nothing wrong with patriotism itself. Your country is, after all, the land you call home. To do what is best for your country is to do what is best for your home. The disintegration of Yugoslavia over the last decade provides an example. Yugoslavia was a national fiction, its name literally meaning "Land of the southern Slavs" - as if being Slavic means anything - created by foreign diplomats in the aftermath of World War I. The various peoples of its several states - Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, et al. did not view this new Yugoslavia as their own country. It was therefore easy for many of them to desire secession, just as it was easy for Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to jump the gun on the Soviet Union's break-up by seceding in 1990.

Patriotism is not loyalty to whichever regime controls the military force that dominates your region, but is rather loyalty to the "homeland," or "nation," a geographic area that is generally identifiable, in which an ethnic group has historically and currently resides. Where such a homeland is not self-governing, patriots are called nationalists and aspire to form a sovereign nation. Niccolo Machiavelli was perhaps the first modern nationalist. As a bureaucrat and writer in the early sixteenth century, he knew what the Italian nation was and sought to unify it, which would thereby free the Italian people from the supposedly independent feudal states, which were really dominated by foreign and papal intrigue. He understood where Italy was and who Italians were. Italy was Machiavelli's homeland, and his loyalty was to Italy, even though it did not legally exist as a sovereign nation, and would not for over 300 years. Machiavelli's writings, the basis for modern political theory, were not philosophical tomes on an ideal state a' la Plato, but invoked history and recommended courses of action.

Patriotism can be a benign concept, no more than recognizing that there is an "us" and "them" and that this particular geographical area belongs to "us." Superiority - racial, cultural, or moral - is not implied; all patriotism seeks is to outline proper lines of jurisdiction so that a native people is not subjected to the inhospitable government of another. I'm no Johnson scholar, but I'd doubt that he'd disagree with any of this. It is not scandalous to desire one's own home and family to be secure and free, and no more scandalous to desire the land in which it's located to be secure and free, for the two concepts, home and homeland, are inseparable. Patriotism is not bad at all, but invoking it is like the challenge of a horny teenage boy to his girlfriend, or a manipulative mother to his grown-up child: "If you love me, you would do thus-and-so," meaning "If you don't do this, you don't love me." When intellectual reasoning fails, emotional appeals are used, and only scoundrels, and possibly idiots, need to use them.

The problem with the United States is that it is composed of a free and mobile people who move across state lines all the time. Newcomers change local customs, and the most ethnically homogenous states are among the most rural and economically depressed, often the same ones that lose population. Strong state identity manifests itself quirkily - Nebraska's college football team, Utah's Mormon dominance, Nevada's gambling culture - but national identity overrules. Since the Civil War, a true patriot acted in the best interest of the United States, not his home state. Many argue that this is for the best - indeed, I do as well. The right to secede from the Union makes for incoherent political theory by making the Union too fragile to do anything effective for its own security. But where patriotism and nationalism - an affection for people in all our states and a commitment to the values we all share - becomes dark, perverse, and counter-productive is when it becomes the excuse to by-pass or overrule local and state action in order to serve the ideals in our national mythology, particularly equality, individualism, and virtue. For if the people are so economically unequal, the republic cannot survive, right?

Well, ours always has, from slavery to Rockefeller's monopoly to Sam Walton to Bill Gates. If the people's individual rights are violated, fascism or theocracy is right behind, right? Well, our republic has survived everything from local flag-burning laws (until our unelected, life-tenured Supreme Court Justices decided we couldn't) to state-mandated prayer in schools (until ditto) to mandatory census questions about the size of one's toilets (and what can be more private than that?). The sad state of America's hypocrisy about its own principles, and/or its immorality will ruin the nation, right? Just as naysayers proclaimed every generation before ours. I believe in democracy and liberty through multi-layered security established through democratically-ordained states constitutions, a federal Constitution controlled by the people, and the laws enacted through them. The advocates of economic justice, individual rights, and morality do not. Which is the more patriotic position? THE MEANING OF PATRIOTISM THE MEANING OF PATRIOTISM Love for one's ancestry, culture or homeland is the root meaning of patriotism.

Derived from the Greek kputrios ("of one's fathers") or patris (one's fatherland") the Oxford English Dictionary defines a patriot as "one who disinterestedly or self-sacrificingly exerts himself to promote the well-being of his country." A patriot is "one who maintains and defends his country's freedom or rights." While we tend to think of a patriot as a person who puts his country first in opposition to another country, originally the term meant one who supported the rights of "country" or "land" against the King and his court. In other words, a patriot stood for the rights of local self-government and was opposed to tyrannical rule-even by his own king. Thus, true patriotism is the impulse to defend one's land, country or way of life against unjust governmental oppression.

From Ben Johnson..."Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Similarly, from Thoreau, "Patriotism is a maggot in their heads." George Bernard Shaw has said..."You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race." Oscar Wilde said "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." Leo Tolstoy described patriotism as "the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers". Gustave Herve calls patriotism "a superstition, one far more injurious, brutal and inhumane than religion". Patriotism, he said, is artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods. It is a superstition that has robbed man of his dignity, self-respect and increased his arrogance and conceit. "Indeed, conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism," said anarchist Emma Goldman . "Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those born within this little spot consider themselves superior, nobler, more esteemed and more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot.

"It is therefore the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose superiority upon all others. The inhabitants outside that little spot reason in the same manner, of course." Patriotism demands the creation of territorial boundaries. To sustain the equilibrium of such territories, countless laws and regulations are imposed, rendering humans to a prison-like state of affairs. Patriotism provokes a psychology of hatred for those outside those territories. Several bogeymen are portrayed by the government of the day as enemies attempting to destroy peace and harmony. Throughout history, governments confine their citizens by incessantly brainwashing the minds of men, women and children with the evils of past colonial masters, communists and foreigners who are deemed to have nothing better to do than to find ways and means to overpower those who are weaker. Teddy Roosevelt a war militarist and war monger by any standard may not be the first person you'd expect to utter this quote: "Patriotism means to stand by the country. IT DOES NOT MEAN to stand by the President or any other public office save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country".

Maybe that is the meaning of the famous dictum, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels". Advocating true patriotism certainly does not make one a scoundrel; the dictum refers only to the pseudo-patriotism Teddy Roosevelt spoke about: what "scoundrels" do is to use their own proclamations of patriotism to bully others into going along with certain policies -- policies that, more often than not, turn out to be against the true interests of America. Roosevelt was very precise in his terms: "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public office SAVE EXACTLY TO THE DEGREE in which he himself stands by the country". Meaning, a true Patriot is someone who supports -- or opposes -- the policies of the President and other leaders, EXACTLY TO THE DEGREE that such policies are right -- or wrong -- by the democratic standards of justice and fairness. True patriots are people like Martin Luther King and those who protested against the Vietnam War - people who genuinely wanted a more just and equitable society. One of the more serious but so far little discussed questions raised by the Sept.

11 terrorist attack on the United States is about the nature of patriotism. What does it mean to be patriotic? Is it just flying the American flag? Just singing ï¿½God Bless Americaï¿½ at every turn? Just voicing support for our national war on terrorism? If, in fact, patriotism does not go beyond those responses, it isnï¿½t worth much. I certainly am not suggesting flags and songs are wrong or silly. Not at all. But theyï¿½re the frosting on the cake. Real patriotism runs deeper. Itï¿½s multilayered and not merely a short list festooned with reds, whites and blues and set to a rousing Sousa march. If patriotism is just waving the flag, then Samuel Johnson was right that ï¿½patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.ï¿½ And, worse, Guy de Maupassant was right that ï¿½patriotism is the egg from which wars are hatched.ï¿½ An insightful essay on patriotism by Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas, can be found at: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The precursor to patriotism is nationalism.

The following is an essay by A C Grayling, philosophy professor at the University of London and Oxford. The essay is taken from his most excellent book The Meaning of Things (2001). His personal web site is at where he has posted some of his writings. Nationalism Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. `Patriotism' is its cult. - Erich Fromm Nationalism is an evil. It causes wars, its roots lie in xenophobia and racism, it is a recent phenomenon - an invention of the last few centuries - which has been of immense service to demagogues and tyrants but to no one else. Disguised as patriotism and love of one's country, it trades on the unreason of mass psychology to make a variety of horrors seem acceptable, even honourable. For example: if someone said to you, 'I am going to send your son to kill the boy next door' you would hotly protest.

But only let him seduce you with 'Queen and Country!' 'The Fatherland!' 'My country right or wrong!' and you would find yourself permitting him to send all our sons to kill not just the sons of other people, but other people indiscriminately - which is what bombs and bullets do. Demagogues know what they are about when they preach nationalism. Hitler said, 'The effectiveness of the truly national leader consists in preventing his people from dividing their attention, and keeping it fixed on a common enemy.' And he knew who to appeal to: Goethe had long since remarked that nationalistic feelings 'are at their strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture'. Nationalists take certain unexceptionable desires and muddle them with unacceptable ones. We individually wish to run our own affairs; that is unexceptionable. Most of us value the culture which shaped our development and gave us our sense of personal and group identity; that too is unexceptionable.

But the nationalist persuades us that the existence of other groups and cultures somehow puts these things at risk, and that the only way to protect them is to see ourselves as members of a distinct colï¿½lective, defined by ethnicity, geography, or sameness of language or religion, and to build a wall around ourselves to keep out 'foreigners'. It is not enough that the others are other; we have to see them as a threat - at the very least to 'our way of life', perhaps to our jobs, even to our daughters. When Europe's overseas colonies sought independence, the only rhetoric to hand was that of nationalism. It had well served the unifiers of Italy and Germany in the nineteenth century (which in turn prepared the way for some of their activities in the twentieth century), and we see a number of the ex-colonial nations going the same way today. The idea of nationalism turns on that of a 'nation'.

The word is meaningless: all 'nations' are mongrel, a mixture of so many immigrations and mixings of peoples over time that the idea of ethnicity is largely comical, except in places where the boast has to be either that the community there remained so remote and disengaged, or so conquered, for the greater part of history, that it succeeded in keeping its gene pool 'pure' (a cynic might say 'inbred' ). Much nonsense is talked about nations as entities: Emerson spoke of the 'genius' of a nation as something separate from its numerical citizens; Giraudoux described the 'spirit of a nation' as 'the look in its eyes'; other such meaningless assertions abound. Nations are artificial constructs, their boundaries drawn in the blood of past wars. And one should not confuse culture and nationality: there is no country on earth which is not home to more than one different but usually coexisting culture. Cultural heritage is not the same thing as national identity. The blindness of people who fall for nationalistic demagoguery is surprising.

Those who oppose closer relations in Europe, or who seek to detach themselves from the larger comï¿½ities to which they belong, do well to examine the lessons of such tragedies as the Balkans conflicts, or - the same thing writ larger - Europe's bloody history in the twentieth century. Gleaned from The Meaning of Things by A C Grayling (2001) This book is an excellent read An interesting web site with a strong anti-war message and thoughtful views on the real meaning of patriotism can be found at Birdman's Anti-War Page . Are Patriotism and Religion the Last Refuges of Scoundrels? | Prometheus Unbound Are Patriotism and Religion the Last Refuges of Scoundrels? In 1775, in the year just prior to the American Revolution, Samuel Johnson famously quipped that: Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. And this morning, thinking about this truism, I asked myself this question: What is it about patriotism that makes it amenable to usage by scoundrels? And it occurred to me that the answer is surprisingly straightforward: patriotism makes something other than reason—in this case, nationalism—the last court of human appeal: my country, right or wrong.

In other words, patriotism short circuits reason and puts in its place a form of submission: loyalty to a fatherland or motherland above all else. And so patriotism, being pre-rational, is a form of mystification readily exploited by scoundrels. The American and French Revolutions, being assertions of reason and individual liberty against the mystifications of kings, would not have happened if the scoundrel appeals to loyal submission to king and country were heeded. And so this seemed to me a tidy summing up (at least to my own mind) of why patriotism is, indeed, the last refuge of the scoundrel. Nationalism trumps reason. But then another question occurred to me: What props up nationalism? And once again, the answer seemed blindingly obvious: religion. The American and French Revolutions—the fruits of the Anglo-French Enlightenment—were not just in a fight against kings and patriots (defined by loyalty to a king ruling territory). Instead, they were in a fight against the divine right of kings over a territory. Religion and nationalism, in other words, are the two pillars of the anti-Enlightenment tradition—the tradition that sets faith and cultural conformity over universal human reason and individual liberty.

And so it is that faith and patriotism function as the last refuges—against the universalist Anglo-French Enlightenment tradition—of scoundrels. June 25, 2010 at 9:02 am Penn and Teller’s patriotism is completely coherent to me. I do think, however, that people like Glenn Beck use this form of patriotism to swindle into the conversation old style anti-Enlightenment nationalism (the Founding Fathers built the country on faith, Americans are unusually good human beings, etc.). Beck, and similar scoundrels, are, at bottom, anti-Enlightenment nationalists, not Enlightenment nationalists (like Penn and Teller). There’s a difference, and it is important. We should be suspicious of any form of nationalism that has not first thoroughly passed through the Enlightenment (historically, culturally, intellectually). Nationalism absent the Enlightenment is frequently a hindrance to the advance of univeral freedom and liberty. Just look at Iran. —Santi You set your reason and liberty beneath loyalty to country—or above it?

When push comes to shove, what is your last court of appeal?: —patriotism (my country, right or wrong) —faith June 25, 2010 at 7:37 am I’m gonna have to go with faith because my morals are based on a set of values, and reason alone cannot derive values into existence. I believe my country was primarily founded on those values, but as it sways form them my patriotism calls me rebellion not acquiescence. June 25, 2010 at 8:09 am Andrew: Your answer is surprising. Is it coherent to say that your values do not accord with your reason? Did you just pick them off the shelf wholly as an act of contingency? I understand how a people can have eccentric pursuits of happiness and eccentric commitments to fantasies and myths that they salivate to (from religion to Star Trek). And I can understand how important it is to protect the ability to pursue them. That’s called liberty. But what surprises me is that you would set the foundation for your liberties on faith (and not reason). What values, exactly, do you think this country was founded on? I say universal human reason and individual liberty.

I think that is where the buck stopped for people like Paine, Hamilton, Franklin, and Jefferson. I think that they understood reason to be a break with the past—a break from tradition, authority, and faith—and something that humans could base their lives on and make for themselves, as individuals and collectively, a better and freer world. I think that the Founding Fathers thought that, by making reason the last court of appeal in disputes, it was capable of arbitrating a better future for humanity than the ones that kings and priests were likely to ever achieve (and I think that their intuition proved correct). I also think that the Founding Fathers believed that open dialogue, individual liberty, representative democracy, and science worked, and had universal application to the problems facing mankind. That’s what I say they were fighting for (not the replication of European forms of nationalism on the American continent). They wanted a republic: a representative government based on the power of universal reason and liberty. And they expected the model—being a break with the past, and superior to it—to one day expand to the whole world. What say you? June 25, 2010 at 8:27 am All reasoned argument requires premises.

My premises are that the universe operates on some constant set of rules, and that I both exist within that universe and have power over my own existence. From there a respect for science and vaguely Lockean values follows. I am patriotic because the manner of the founding of this nation and its early form suggest a loose basis on those values in ways not previously (and arguably never again) established. So yes, I use reason, but that reason requires a few assumptions, which I accept as a matter of faith (and thankfully science appears to be validating, at least as much as is possible.) June 25, 2010 at 8:44 am Andrew: Yes, I agree with you then. This is the ground for American patriotism: its disjuncture from the past. Or as you put it: “I am patriotic because the manner of the founding of this nation and its early form suggest a loose basis on those values in ways not previously (and arguably never again) established.” That disjuncture was the Enlightenment (a commitment to universal reason and liberty).

As for your axioms, while you might not be able to come up with air-tight syllogisms for accepting them, you obviously have not adopted them at random, and so I would not use the word “faith” to describe your commitment to them. You have very good reasons for thinking that they are true, and you could offer reasons that a reasonable person would understand. You are not appealing to authority. This is what I mean by a commitment to reason—a commitment to dialogue and a respect for science and universal knowledge. —Santi June 25, 2010 at 8:58 am Yes, well I do have no basis for discounting postmodernism in its most extreme form (How can we know anything for sure?) So that is an assumption. Also I place the value on the individual and assert that introspection and thought can lead to changes in behavior, thus asserting a sort of physics compliant for of free will. The last one seems to be corroborated by neuroscience, but the placing of value on the individual sentient being is a clear matter of faith. I can make pragmatic arguments for individual freedom to collectivists, but there are some areas that we just won’t agree on.

Also where does one draw the line for sentience (Some draw it so that only humans of a certain race are real ‘people’, while others include nearly all animals)? These are not question that science can give limited if any insight to. So if I am to be honest, I must admit that faith underlies my beliefs. man, so many typos… sorry santitafarella June 25, 2010 at 9:16 am Andrew, No worries. I think of reason as the helium in a balloon: so long as people are talking and reasoning together—exchanging their hot air—and the helium is going in, the balloon will rise. What I’m trying to say, via my bad analogy, is that the more people talk about religion, postmodernism, science, political ideologies, etc. the better their conclusions on these matters are likely to be. In other words, postmodernism has its charms, but on balance it is a bad idea and does not do well in argumentation. It is true that sophists have always been around (and will always be around—postmodernism is a contemporary form of sophism), but if you get sick, you go to a doctor (not to a continental philosopher).

Put another way: the faith of the Enlightenment is that, over time, and if dialogue and science are kept open, humanity will make its way to a better world—a more rational world. And ideas that are rational will eventually prevail over generally bad ideas (like, say, sharia law or young earth creationism). I think this is true. It’s my faith as an Enlightenment humanist. I see humanity advancing. And I see it advancing because Enlightenment rationalism and liberty are compelling, and are a break with the past. It is a historic disjuncture that is going relentlessly forward (in the teeth of a lot of traditionalist and nationalist static). Our historic moment, Andrew, is to live at a time when the Enlightenment has occurred, but has not prevailed yet. It is a time in which the Enlightenment is clashing against counter-Enlightenment forces (traditionalisms, collectivist ideologies, nationalisms, religious authorities). We are amphibians. Perhaps our great grandchildren will find themselves on a less foggy, and less irrational, shore.

—Santi “False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.” – Joseph de Maistre A few points: Santi, you are merely asserting the divine right of the individual. This is also a faith. And it is a false one. It is also a patria. And it is a disloyal one. Reason as a court of final arbitration does not create a better future; it creates what we have today: Degeneration. Having less being, less identity, this is degeneration and not progress. The Anglo-French Degeneration. Pi may be an irrational number (I would say an extra-rational number.), but you need it to create a circle. Values are not picked off a shelf. They are givens, not subject to reason. For how can anyone exercise reason to pick a value, except by virtue of an even deeper set value? Liberty may be thought of as potential energy. Talk all you want, but liberty’s value comes in its exercise, in making a choice—which thereby closes liberty off. To ask a question is to presuppose that you want an answer, even expect one.

To pretend to choose, but to hold open the choice, is simply not to choose. What may I choose as an individual in America with a right to liberty? To be in communion with my ancestors through tradition? To be in communion with my neighbours through collectivism? No? What if I choose, as I have, “throne and altar?” Not an option? Then what is this vaunted liberty? You have written that you are enriched by the diversity of your L.A. neighbourhoods. But are your neighbours from different cultures enriched by you? In what way? What have you given them? Your humanity? Ha. Ha. Ha. This is why I condemn modern America. It allows one to choose only to be an individual. But without some content, this individuality is an empty vessel. America preaches freedom, but condemns its exercise. You have the right to choose, so long as you don’t exercise it. I agree that at least to a great extent “America” was founded upon universal human reason and individual liberty. Certainly that foul human Thomas Paine thought so. This is why I reject it.

What if I use that individual liberty you prize so highly to establish a European nationalism on this soil, which I have, if only in my own home and heart? I get war from “Enlightenment” zealots. America will only permit one to be loyal to oneself. Yet, if the man is not loyal to something other than himself, he has not himself either. “Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.” – Joseph de Maistre Americanists do expect to expand their model to whole world. It’s a conquest that they call “liberation.” It’s an implicit assertion of moral superiority because there is no moral superiority. It is therefore schizonphrenic. That’s why Enlightenment Liberalism must, for the sake of Mankind, be defeated. And will be defeated. “Nationalism absent the Enlightenment is frequently a hindrance to the advance of univeral freedom and liberty.” Thank God. Come out of the darkness and see some-thing. Roger: You said: “What if I use that individual liberty you prize so highly to establish a European nationalism on this soil, which I have, if only in my own home and heart? I get war from “Enlightenment” zealots.

America will only permit one to be loyal to oneself. Yet, if the man is not loyal to something other than himself, he has not himself either. ‘Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.'” My response: I have little sympathy for your private project (a form of European nationalism). But that is a far cry from saying that you cannot envision it, try to build a commune around it, build it into a whole cultural community with property that you have purchased (like, say, the Amish have done in Pennsylvania). I recognize the value to the human psyche for creative and shared cultural vision (whether constructed from scratch or nostalgia). And I might argue with you about your religious or political views, but I wouldn’t prevent your liberty among consenting adults. In other words, there would be no “war” with you beyond the rhetorical (sassing you at my blog etc.). As for de Maistre’s quote, you salivate to original sin as a concept. I don’t.

You may be right that it is folly to try to build a life or a community without taking original sin into account, but only Enlightenment humanism of the Paine and Jefferson variety give people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes (make errors in the exercise of liberty). Setting reason and liberty in the driver’s seat of arbitration makes it possible for you to be you with others who agree with you, and me to be me with others who agree with me. Lastly, as for neighborhoods: we build multicultural LA neighborhoods from our human universals (all humans like their own place to live, they like to be smiled at when passed in the street, they like a convenient place to get a loaf of bread etc.). The Phoenecians have to get along with the Jews (if they want to trade). The benefits are too high to shun. But the peculiar cultural or private fantasy expressions of individuals gets done with others who share similar obsessions. It’s not my role in the community to give my neighbor that. They have their family, coworkers, and links to meaning, and I have mine.

Just because a nation is not going all in the same religious or cultural direction (or a neighborhood for that matter), it doesn’t mean that the basic Enlightenment regime (reason and liberty) isn’t making it possible for eccentric flowers to bloom. It’s just that human universals are powerful and attractive—probably more attractive than most provincialisms. That’s why it’s hard for Los Angeles immigrant parents to get their children to do things in the old way—it’s the tug of the urban Phoenecians that calls their children away (and, in my view, usually for the better). If, for example, pre-Vatican II Catholicism is such a vibrant and satifsying cultural expression for you, play it out. But you may not find many people to join you. And the days when you could pad your numbers by forced conformity are long gone. That milk has already washed from the carton. What spilled it was the French and American Revolutions. You can’t go from experience to innocence. —Santi June 25, 2010 at 4:07 pm Roger: One more thing: what you call decadence I would call human universals that draw people together into large urban areas.

The meta-urban cultures that now interconnect around the globe—you can drink Starbucks in Shanghai or Austin—get their energy, for good and ill, from exploiting human universals. I don’t see how or why you think it would be desirable (let alone practical) to see humanity arrest its development at a certain stage of history (say, the 18th century). It is near-inevitable, given the spectacular capacities of the human mind, that our technology would spawn a global culture based on human universals. How could this moment, after the scientific revolution, not have come sooner or later? I don’t think that human beings are a terrible mistake, do you? Provincialism is obviously a waystation to something else. If we’re a species that survives for another million years, we’ll be interplanetary and maybe even interstellar beings at some point. How silly and curious nationalism will seem then. Roger, you’ve seen the earth from space. That’s humanity’s collective destiny. Hopefully we can base it on reason and liberty as human universals. But those images of earth from space—the very fact of their existence—are the writing on the wall.

The blue of them is the blood of the earth birthing something new—the image of a blue and human inhabited planet writ large. The Anglo-French Enlightenment Revolution writ large. Provincialism must face a heavy headwind forever after. “One world, ready or not.” —Santi June 28, 2010 at 4:26 am Heh heh. My friend Santi, considering some of the excesses of the French Revolution (the ‘Cult of Reason’ comes to mind) and even some of the more extreme statements of certain leaders of the American Revolution (Thomas Jefferson’s quote about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots and tyrants), it isn’t immediately self-evident that the Enlightment tradition, at least in and of itself, brought an end to the nasty specters of not even religion or nationalism, but the underlying human tendency of in/out-group thinking that often leads to such nastiness of all sorts.

June 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm “I don’t think that human beings are a terrible mistake, do you?” “And they expected the model—being a break with the past, and superior to it—to one day expand to the whole world.” I am not sure how you square the two statements. You seem to be saying that human beings were a terrible mistake until manna rained from Heaven in the form of the Declaration of Independence. You wouldn’t prevent my liberty from “consenting adults?” How does one consent to be excluded? For me to form my “commune,” I would need to exclude those who, consenting or not, do not fit the paradigm. If I form a commune that holds heterosexuality to be normative, how can I hold on to it without excluding in some measure the homosexual boy living down the street? June 28, 2010 at 2:26 pm Roger: I do think that human existence—absent reason, rebellion, and the Declaration of Independence—is a mistake. I’m glad I live in the Enlightenment-driven era that I do. As for your commune, do what you want with your private property.

If you have somebody living on your property without your consent, kick him off. But if you don’t own all the houses on the block, you are out of luck if you want to force someone out of your pristine social experiment. What is it you want that the Enlightenment deprives you of—a whole nation under Catholic law and blocked from the Internet? What is it, exactly, that you want that you don’t have? Do you want the Phoenecians never to trade with you or visit your closed territory that you hold in covenant with God? —Santi June 30, 2010 at 2:26 pm The Enlightenment does not deprive me of anything by its simple existence, so long as I do not have to obey its dictates. If you are not loyal to the king, that is ultimately not my problem. The issue really only arises when you demand that I be loyal to the democracy, or more precisely today, to the sacrosanct individual. If you tell me that you have no duty to respect the king as king… well, I know I don’t have any duty to respect you, just because you can walk and talk. You may say in all this that I am calling after spilt milk.

Not true. Let me update this a little. You apparently hate (given the thrust of your post) everyone (and, despite your characterisations otherwise, I suspect that they are in the millions in the U.S. and in the billions around the globe) who don’t want to transform their world into your wonderful vista future with you. You have deemed them worthy of hate. I am simply calling out anyone who asserts, without explanation, that the milk should be spilt, must be spilt. You are attempting to shift a burden. Look, be as Enlightenment as you personally want to be. But some people already have communities, or the remnants thereof, and they are not obligated to allow some universalism to deconstruct those communities, subject to meeting your justification requirement. You have attempted to characterise my desires as similar to those of the inhabitants of The Village. Not so. You might be surprised at how liberal a society I might prefer—so long as the society had A WAY of its own. What I prefer may be a “European nationalism,” but I admit that I am not entitled to it any more than you are entitled to get rid of it. Nonetheless, the only community that is a community is one that has a way of its own.

June 30, 2010 at 2:27 pm Santi Property. Sovereignty. If a people are the people of a community, they can kick out anyone they wish out of their country as well. Here appears to be the rub, and the reason that the break-with-the past types are tyrannical: They presume to DEFINE “America” as universal reason and individual liberty when it ought to be defined as WHATEVER “the Americans” will it to be (I say this even as a monarchist-sympathiser.). Your position appears to be—along with the pocket-constitution faux opposition across the aisle—that the people exist to execute a political philosophy. To the extent their politics exhibits a refusal to do so, it is void and illegitimate. What was it that Brecht said about the East German government? In any event, can I do whatever I want with my private property? Thanks though, I take it that you are not a supporter of the spirit of the Civil Rights Act either. Respecting the Amish, I am so glad you’re not of the same opinion as US SCt Justice Douglas in a case called Yoder v. Wisconsin.

The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page: Quotes on Patriotism The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page Authority/Government/State In the first (1755) and fourth (1773) editions of his Dictionary, Johnson defines "patriot" as "One whose ruling passion is the love of his country." In the fourth edition, Johnson adds: "It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government." "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel ." Boswell: Life 404. Patriotism "A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest." 405. Appearances; Patriotism "Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight." 406.

Patriotism "Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country." Link 408. Patriotism; Politics; Subversion "A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion." 409. Fear; Patriotism "It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance.

The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities..." Link 411. Class; Patriotism; Populism; Subversion "A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even this mark may sometimes deceive us. The people is a very heterogeneous and confused mass of the wealthy and the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we confer on a man, who caresses the people, the title of patriot, we must examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is proverbially said, that he who dissembles his own character, may be known by that of his companions.

If the candidate of patriotism endeavours to infuse right opinions into the higher ranks, and, by their influence, to regulate the lower; if he consorts chiefly with the wise, the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may be rational and honest. But if his first or principal application be to the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the prfligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his love of the people be no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot, or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and, among sober handicraftmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have some better distinction, before he is a patriot." 413. America/Americans; Patriotism; Taxation "He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.

"That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims of American usurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its natural and lawful authority over its own colonies, which were settled under English protection; were constituted by an English charter; and have been defended by English arms. "To suppose, that by sending out a colony, the nation established an independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at their own pleasure; and that they shall not be included, like millions of their fellow-subjects, in the general system of representation; involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the show of patriotism could palliate. "He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans; we may, therefore, subject them to government." Link 951. The Press; Patriotism "In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy.

At this time the task of the news-writer is easy; they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing." Johnson: Idler #30 (November 11, 1758) 994. Criticism; Patriotism "Scarce any can hear with impartiality a comparison between the writers of his own and another country; and though it cannot, I think, be charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe that there was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own.

I can scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy worthy of so much zeal, vehemence, and acrimony." Johnson: Rambler #93 (February 5, 1751) Link 1,398. Patriotism; Soldiers and Sailors; War It affords a generous and manly pleasure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every side to invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man sleeps securely with his sword beside him; where all on the first approach of hostility come together at the call to battle, as at a summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of those, whose dislike or kindness they have always considered as the greatest evil or the greatest good. This was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the Highlands.

Every man was a soldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compensate. Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland 1,807. Dissent; Patriotism "It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed."

Question: Who first stated that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?
Answer: Samuel Johnson